How about a bit of Sport?

Stephanie Mallen – Personal Training

‘Sports’ was our subject and according to the Oxford Dictionary sport is ‘an activity involving physical exertion and skill in which an individual or team competes against another or others for entertainment.’ In Stephanie’s example above we have an individual who looks like he’s sneaking in a bit of personal training during lunch break. I believe this is Stephanie’s first entry, which was in the Novice category and it scored a perfect ten….congratulations Steph!

As with all of our previous competitions, an excursion was arranged prior to competition night to provide an opportunity for members to create entries for the subject. The excursion this time was to the City To Bay Fun Run and pleasingly there were some entries as a result.

Bruce Nankivell – City Bay One foot after the Other

Our judge for the evening was Benjamin Kerr who is relatively new to the world of judging and it has to be said he definitely impressed as reflected with considerable positive feedback. For me it was enlightening to have a judge who looked upon each photograph for what it was and judged it as such rather than judge it perhaps less highly because he didn’t quite understand the image.

Benjamin states: ‘Photography for me is about validation and connection – giving the viewer something that they might desire or simply identify with and to provide a perspective that gives you an opportunity to think and contemplate.
Having recently graduated with my Diploma in Photo Imaging (June 2016) I must be honest and say that I am yet to find myself as an Artist with a definitive and recognisable personal style.
I enjoy what I do and yes I intentionally flit around and experiment between Commercial Work, Portraiture, Weddings and Formals, Landscape, Abstract, Macro, Astro, Architecture and a whole suite of other categories.’

This range of interests in his photography came through in his judging with a wide understanding of what is required to make it all work in the different scenarios.

You can check out some of Benjamin’s work and find out more about him at: http://www.snapshotdigitalimagery.com/Pages/home

Just grabbing some of his feedback for a moment:

‘Need to be sure the focus of the image is in a dominant position ‘eg not too far to one side of the image’. The word balance comes to mind.

Many shots impressed with their clever inclusion of ‘leading lines’.

He enjoyed the strong contrasts in many images

Ben showed understanding and appreciation for photos that are difficult to take due to light conditions, reflections, shadows etc.

A comment we’ve heard from other judges again raised it’s head: ‘Be mindful of what is in the background and if it’s a person and it’s going to be distracting, wait until they have moved out of the frame’.

Be careful of empty space

‘Everything you need to know is in the picture’

He enjoyed the play of the intentional slow shutter speed in some cases which created a mix of sharp and blurred

Our Open Category once again resulted in plenty of stunning and high scoring images:

Helen Whitford – Elephish

Chris Schultz – Portal

Chris Schultz – Dome

Tariq Mohammad Abdul – Solitude

Jennifer Williams – Back to the Future

James Allan – Steel Wool

Alberto Giurelli – Galaxy

Alberto Giurelli – The Boxer

Chris Schultz – Smoking Violin

Chris Schultz – Street Meet

Alberto Giurelli – Ghost Tree

Steve Walace – Pacific Gull

Helen Whitford – On yer Bike!

Jennifer Williams – Hotham

Jennifer Williams – Tiahn

Chris Schultz – Liquification

Chris Schultz – Che and Me

This was our last competition for 2016 and we hope you’ve enjoyed all of them. Our thanks go to all the judges who’ve helped us through the year and to those who’ve done all the organising behind the scenes for our competitions, something that should never be taken for granted.

Now we can look forward to finding out what the best photos of the year are via our 2016 Annual Exhibition Awards Night on Thursday November 17.